Conclusion
In general the available research does not show a clearly defined effect of personality on SLA. One reason why this is so may be because personality becomes a major factor only the acquisition of communicative competence. Strong (1983) suggests that the rather confused picture presented by the research can be clarified if a distinction is made between those studies that measured ‘natural communicative language’ and those that measured ‘linguistic task language’. Personality variables can be seen to be consistently related to the former, but only erratically to the letter. Certainly a relationship between personality and communicative skills seems more intuitively feasible than one between personality and pure linguistic ability. Or alternatively, different personality characteristics are involved in promoting communicative and linguistic abilities. Perhaps sociability is related to the former, and traits such as ‘quickness in grasping new concepts’ and ‘perfectionist tendencies’ (Swain and Burnaby 1976) to the letter. Other traits, such as a preparedness to be ‘experimental’ may be important in both (Hawkey 1982)